American Kennel Club Announces Valley's Most Popular Dog Breeds -- Assuming You Don't Live in the Hood

This guy isn't quite posh enough to be counted in the American Kennel Club's list of the country's most popular pooches.

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The American Kennel Club released its list of "the most popular dogs in the U.S.A.," and Valley residents, it turns out, have a thing for Labrador Retrievers, German Shepherds, and Golden Retrievers. Those are just the most popular dogs registered with the AKC -- in other words, Pit-Bull eating out of a dumpster in south Phoenix is a breed that didn't quite make the list.

According to the AKC, the Valley's top picks for pooches are as follows:

As we mentioned, those rankings only count dogs registered with the AKC,
but anyone who's spent any time in some of Phoenix's less-reputable
neighborhoods -- or the ASU Tempe campus, where male students often
accessorize their image with a ferocious looking canine -- knows Pit
Bulls make up a large portion of the Valley's dog population. Officials
from the Maricopa County Animal Care and Control Center seem to agree.

While Pit Bulls don't get any love from the AKC (again, because often
times they aren't registered with the group) officials at the MCACCC
tell New Times the three breeds of dogs generally classified as
Pit Bulls -- the American Pit Bull terrier, the American Staffordshire
terrier, and the Staffordshire bull terrier -- make up roughly one-third
of the dogs brought to its kennels.

We have a feeling the AKC's rankings of the "most popular dogs in the U.S.A." would be slightly more
Pit-Bull-centric if the group tallied up all the pound puppies the way
it does the snooty Scottsdale Shih tzus.